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GameFAQs is right. You can be killed by a stiff breeze early on. Later on the other hand you'll massacre everything and everyone.

As far as combat styles go, no there is not much difference. Two-Handed is slower but has greater reach, which can be very helpful. Just don't mess your swinging rythm up or else...!

Basically you should do the quests you find in the various hubs first, follow the main storyline a little until you've been to all the camps and then decide who to join. The game opens up after that.

Ferrus on June 2010

I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.

My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.

It was 2000 tickety. We had to use tickety cause the Taliban stole our word for "one". During this time I was poketing lunch money for the week in order to save up to feed my game addictions. I was strolling around Best Buy when sudddenly the Cheeto I had on my hat, which was the style at the time, fell out.

As I pick it up I see the box for Gothic. I had read a review about it on IGN but all I remember was that being in prison and having to carry a torch to light areas were features in the game. I picked up the box and looked at the back and saw a few screenshots but what popped out at me was the main character had a sword on his back. Sold! As kid who only had access to a PC for the past 4 years and would be for the following 2, I had always wanted a PC cloneof Zelda 64. You know 3D open world and seeing a sword on you.

So I install the game at home get brought into this game world. You are thrown into a land encased in a magic energy barrier and had become a prison. You enter the place and you meet the games version of Red from Shawshank Redemption and gives the low down on the situation and then the new game is to survive. Never before had I played a game were I felt very vunerable and must try to surrive rather then play because this world isn't going to give me any breaks.

I stroll along a path in a canyon and scoff at the "open world" that was touted on the box but then you hit the end and are welcomed to a scenic view of the land with a large castle town in front of you that you gotta make your way to. As I enter I see NPCs go about real daily routines and follow schedules and they all have assigned homes. You can't just walk into one like other games or you get your ass kicked. Don't brandish your rusty sword you found or everyone will threaten you to put it away or else. And you will get you ass kicked at least once but you don't die, instead they take what money you have (ore) and your weapon and leave you on the floor humiliated and gasping for a life bar. I was so scared that I stayed up all night in game time cause I didn't want leave the walls but I had no where to sleep.

Then you find a dude who will guide you to one of the two other gang camps in the prison. Then you witness again how big and detailed the world is. And then you have the forests. The game engine had this neat effect where from afar the forest look really thick bush and as entered its borders then the walls dissapear and you have this dark tree infested area with wolves and other creatures that at low levels will rape you easily. For this reason I was scared to go into the forest for a long time.

Anyways until I started getting used to the wonky contols and learning the game exploits, this is the first game that I reall ever got immersed it until maybe Red Dead Redemption. So Gothic will always have a special place with me.

I didn't get far in Gothic 2 and never touched Gothic 3. Weird.

HyperAquaBlast on June 2010

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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular

Man, that battle at the start of the game is brutal. I got knocked down several times before I had even found out how to draw my sword. Once I drew it it got knocked out of my hand, so I got my bow out which I promptly lost as well.
I ran out of town, only to be knocked down by a weird bird type thing.
Then I got a message saying that we won the fight with the orcs (obviously not thanks to me). So that went well.

I then remapped some buttons, closed the game, went looking for a bit of a guide on how to survive the first ten minutes in the game, hehe, after reading up a bit I went back in and proceded to get killed at least once every ten minutes or so.
I normally don't like punising games, but despite the brutal difficulty it is a lot of fun. The danger adds a real sense of adventure to expolring the game. I just wished the game loaded quicker, I have this stubborn streak to try a fight a second (or even a third time) if I lose to see if I could have done things differently, only to promptly be looking at the loading screen for 3 minutes or so as a punishment for that silly behaviour.

A word of advice: whatever you do, don't go into any of the caves at a low level. It is never a good idea. Also, dont' start liberating towns right away.

If you played Risen on the 360, it was shit. Be clear about the fact it was on the 360.

If you played Risen on the PC, it was great. Down right fantastic.

I was playing Risen and G3/FG at the same time. G3 was just awful and awkward, it was also hideous and I couldn't bare to look at its malformed people. Everyone looked like a fucking Goomba out of the old Mario movie. Tiny heads and big bodies. It also felt like it was missing a lot of general features. Call them hand holding or whatever, I'd call them the basics. I guess its just old, because Risen didn't have those issues.

Risen was just as tough, so I wouldn't say they were hand holding features. It took a while to learn the flow of the combat system, and it was very difficult for me, until I reached the Monastery. I went as a pure mage, Magic Bullets and Rune Magic all the way, with filled slots of crafting/thieving for good measure. Even then it wasn't a cake walk. I had to carefully manage my mana potions, as they were my offense, defense and even my healing abilities.

The design of things was also really nice. Everything looked gorgeous, I liked that the island was one large, cohesive area, that only required loading when entering one of two towns or a dungeon. Despite my hard-on for open worlds, I was pleased Risen was on a relatively small island. It made adventuring and exploring less tedious and more manageable. The quests were rarely a chore, and I really liked the ones that decided if I would join the mages or the bandits.

Exploring the caves and outter areas, where you can hear large beasts, and you know you're in danger was a blast. Just the burn of your torch to keep you safe, because you know if that Ogre takes offense to your being there, you are fucked.

I also liked that going to far out from shore got my swallowed up and spit up by a gigantic rotworm. I found myself swimming out just for the hell of it, because it made me laugh.

Also, and now, this is important: the game had Fred.

Risen was down right fantastic.

Edit: And that kill-move feature you use on human enemies is good times. I love being able to beat up folks/get beaten up, but not need to kill/die, or be really flowery about it with a final gut-stab from my blade.

I don't mind Gothic 3 looking kinda crappy, but good lord it runs like shit. I had to turn off pretty much every post-processing effect and crank the draw distance way down to keep it from hitching every fifteen seconds of travel.

I should not have to do that in a four year old game on a nine month old PC.

I probably shouldn't have started with Gothic 3, but I went into it remembering that the control scheme was a bit better than its predecessors.

Holy shit I get wrecked in melee combat so badly. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong here, especially against beasts.

Oops, missed this one before.

Animals are harder to fight then humanoids in this game. While humans tend to parry and block, animals don't. So if they get the first attack in, you get a short stun while they keep attacking. Having a group of animals attacking you at the same time makes this effect worse.
As far as I can tell it's a good idea to avoid groups of animals, only take them on if you have a ranged attack of some sort, and then use hit and run tactics.

Fighting humans in melee combat is a lot easier, even in groups, since they take turns attacking you. A bit like in those old martial arts movies, they take you on one at a time making the battle a lot easier.

Also, right click seems to do a faster attack that does less damage, but gives enemies less of a chance to hit you because they get the short stun when hit too.

If you're playing Gothic 3, be sure you grab the Community Patch. I believe the latest version is 1.74. I'd link to it, but my work filters World of Gothic as a Sex site.... You really don't want to play without. I'm pretty sure it works with the Steam version, but not 100%.

The Gothic 3 Steam version is assembled with patch 1.6 and I left it at that.
I had read about the next patch, but I found the game hard enough as it was not to want to add more dificulty. Besides that it was said to limit skills, and since this is my first playthrough I'll probably pick some skills I'll regret so that didn't seem a good option either.

My PC is an old beast, so I knew I'd have to deal with preformance issues. Funnily enough it doesn't seem to matter if I turn the graphics up or down, I seem to get the same lag no matter what I do so I'm running the game on high settings...

The Gothic 3 Steam version is assembled with patch 1.6 and I left it at that.
I had read about the next patch, but I found the game hard enough as it was not to want to add more dificulty. Besides that it was said to limit skills, and since this is my first playthrough I'll probably pick some skills I'll regret so that didn't seem a good option either.

My PC is an old beast, so I knew I'd have to deal with preformance issues. Funnily enough it doesn't seem to matter if I turn the graphics up or down, I seem to get the same lag no matter what I do so I'm running the game on high settings...

I have a new computer and still get pauses. It's just the game.

But you really should get the patch just for the bug fixes. The combat and skills things are optional. I leave them off myself.

If I didnt' have to restart I might have installed the patch if the combat options are optional, but it's too late now. I got 90 of the free AK points, a load of the travel stones, and have done a bunch of quests as well, so I'm a good amount of hours into the game (I've been playing a lot during the day :oops: ) and I really can't be bothered with starting all over again.

I love the Gothic games and their spiritual successor. Their games just have a certain charm to them I can't resist. I imported Gothic 2 and 3 from Europe, at a time when the US version wouldn't be released for several more months.

Although I never did beat Gothic 3. I played the first two to completion but only ever got to the desert in the third game. I wonder if I should re-install it and try to beat it.

I don't know what to think of Arcania: Gothic 4, though, which isn't being developed by Piranha Bytes. It's being made by Spellbound. Apparently they've already got a sequel planned and will start working on it before the first one ships.

So in Gothic 3 I've gotten the quest from Steve Blum to kill some shy deer to the "east" of his camp. I looked east and found nothing but bloodflies (whose poison I can't cure, so I avoid if I can) and bandits, but I finally went straight north of his camp and found four, which I proceeded to kill.

Now I can't find a fifth and I've scoured the whole area, including inside that cave.

korodullin on June 2010

- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)

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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular